by Tove Jansson
The ruby changed colour all the time. At first it was quite pale, and then suddenly a pink glow would flow over it like the sunrise on a snow-capped mountain – and then again crimson flames shot out of its heart and it seemed like a great black tulip with stamens of fire.
‘Oh! if only Snufkin could see it!’ sighed Moomintroll, and he stood there a long, long time while time grew weary and his thoughts were very big.
At last he said: ‘It was wonderful. May I come back and look at it another day?’
But Thingumy and Bob didn’t answer, so he crawled under the hedge again, feeling a bit giddy in the pale daylight, and had to sit on the grass for a while to recover himself.
‘Goodness gracious me!’ he repeated. ‘I’ll eat my tail if that isn’t the King’s Ruby that the Hobgoblin is still looking for in the craters of the moon. To think that this odd little couple have had it in their suitcase all the time!’ Just then the Snork Maiden wandered out into the garden and came to sit beside him, but Moomintroll was so sunk in thought that he didn’t notice her. After a while she poked cautiously at the tuft of his tail.
‘Oh – it’s you, is it?’ said Moomintroll, jumping up.
The Snork Maiden smiled coyly. ‘Have you seen my hair?’ she asked patting her head.
‘All right, let’s,’ said Moomintroll absently.
‘What is the matter with you?’ she asked.
‘My dear little rose-petal, I can’t explain, even to you. But my heart is very heavy. You see, Snufkin has gone away.’
‘Oh, no!’ said the Snork Maiden.
‘Yes, really. But he did say good-bye to me first,’ Moomintroll replied. ‘He didn’t wake anyone else.’
They sat there on the grass for a while, the sun gradually warming their backs, and then Sniff and the Snork came out on the steps.
‘Hullo,’ said the Snork Maiden. ‘Do you know that Snufkin has gone South?’
‘What, without me?’ said Sniff, indignantly.
‘One must be alone sometimes,’ said Moomintroll, ‘but you’re still too young to understand that. Where are the others?’
‘The Hemulen has gone to pick mushrooms,’ said the Snork, ‘and the Muskrat has taken his hammock in, because he thinks the nights are beginning to get cold. And then your mother is in a very bad mood today.’
‘Angry or sad?’ Moomintroll asked, in surprise.
‘More sad, I think,’ answered the Snork.
‘Then I must go in to her at once,’ said Moomintroll. He found Moominmamma sitting on the drawing-room sofa looking most unhappy.
‘What is it, mother?’ he asked.
‘My dear, something terrible has happened,’ she said, ‘my handbag has disappeared. I can’t do anything without it. I’ve searched everywhere, but it isn’t there.’
So Moomintroll organized a hunt in which everybody but the Muskrat took part. ‘Of all unnecessary things,’ said he, ‘your mother’s bag is the most unnecessary. After all, time passes and the days change exactly the same whether she has her bag or not.’
‘That is not the point,’ said Moominpappa, indignantly. ‘I must confess that I feel most strangely towards Moominmamma without her bag. I’ve never seen her without it before!’
‘Was there much in it?’ asked the Snork.
‘No,’ said Moominmamma, ‘only things that we might need in a hurry like dry socks and sweets and string and tummy-powder and so on.’
‘What reward do we get if we find it?’ Sniff wanted to know.
‘Almost anything!’ said Moominmamma. ‘I know, I’ll give a big party for you, and you can have nothing but cake for tea, and nobody need wash or go to bed early!’
After that the search continued twice as hard. They hunted through the whole house. They looked under the carpets and under the beds; in the stove and in the cellar; in the attic and on the roof. They searched the whole garden, the wood-shed and down by the river. The bag was not to be found.
‘Perhaps you climbed a tree with it or took it with you when you went to have a bath?’ asked Sniff.
But Moominmamma only shook her head and wailed: ‘Oh, unhappy day!’
Then the Snork suggested putting an advertisement in the paper, which they did, and the paper came out with two big items of news on the front page:
SNUFKIN LEAVES MOOMINDALE
Mysterious departure at dawn
and in slightly bigger letters:
MOOMINMAMMA’S HANDBAG DISAPPEARS
No clues
Search in progress
Biggest ever August party as reward to finder.
*
As soon as the news had got about, a huge crowd collected in the wood, on the hills and by the sea, and even the smallest forest rat joined in the hunt. Only the old and infirm stayed at home, and the whole valley echoed with shouting and running.
‘Dear me!’ said Moominmamma. ‘What an upheaval!’ But she was secretly rather pleased about it.
‘What’s all the buss afout?’ asked Thingumy.
‘My handbag, of course, dear!’ said Moominmamma.
‘Your black one?’ asked Thingumy, ‘that you can see yourself in, and that has pour fittle lockets?’
‘What did you say?’ asked Moominmamma, who was far too excited to listen to them.
‘The black one with pour fockets?’ repeated Thingumy.
‘Yes, yes,’ said Moominmamma. ‘Run out and play dears, and don’t worry me now.’
‘What do you think?’ asked Bob when they got into the garden.
‘I can’t bear to see her so miserable,’ said Thingumy.
‘I suppose we must bake it tack,’ said Bob with a sigh. ‘Pot a wity! It was so nice to sleep in the pittle lockets.’
So Thingumy and Bob went to their secret hiding place, which nobody had discovered yet, and pulled Moominmamma’s bag out of a rose tree. It was exactly twelve o’clock when they went through the garden dragging the bag between them. The hawk caught sight of the little cavalcade, and went off at once to spread the news over Moomin Valley, and soon the stop press news announced:
Moominmamma’s handbag found. By Thingumy and Bob. Touching scenes in Moominhouse…
‘Is it really true?’ Moominmamma burst out. ‘Oh, how wonderful! Where did you find it?’
‘In a trose ree,’ began Thingumy. ‘It was so nice to sleep…’
But just then lots of people came rushing in to congratulate them and Moominmamma never found out that her bag had been used as a bedroom by Thingumy and Bob. (And perhaps that was just as well.)
After that nobody could think of anything but the big August party which was to be held that night, and everything had to be got ready before the moon rose. How nice it is to prepare for a party that you know will be fun, and to which all the right people are coming! Even the Muskrat showed some interest.
‘You should have a lot of tables,’ he said. ‘Little tables and big ones – in unexpected places. Nobody wants to sit still in the same place at such a big party. There will be more fidgeting than usual, I’m afraid. And first you must offer them all the best things you have. Later on it’s all the same what they get because they’ll be enjoying themselves anyway. And don’t disturb them with songs, and so on – let them make the programme themselves.’
When the Muskrat had produced this surprising piece of worldly wisdom he retired to his hammock to read a book on ‘The Uselessness of Everything’.
‘What shall I wear?’ the Snork Maiden asked Moomintroll, nervously, ‘the blue feather hair decoration or the pearl diadem?’
‘Take the feathers,’ he said. ‘Just the feathers round your ears and ankles. And possibly two or three stuck into the tuft of your tail.’
Thanking him she rushed away and collided in the doorway with the Snork who was carrying some paper-lanterns, and who muttered crossly about the uselessness of sisters, before he strode on into the garden and began hanging the lanterns in the trees.
Meanwhile the Hemulen was arranging firework set-p
ieces in suitable places. They had Bengal Lights, Blue-Star Rain, Silver Fountains, and Rockets that exploded with stars.
‘This is so dreadfully exciting!’ said the Hemulen. ‘Couldn’t we let one off just to try?’
‘It wouldn’t be visible in the daylight,’ said Moominpappa. ‘But take a squib and let that off in the potato cellar if you like.’
Moominpappa was busy on the veranda, making punch in a barrel. He put in almonds and raisins, lotus juice, ginger, sugar and nutmeg flowers, one or two lemons, and a couple of pints of strawberry liqueur to make it specially good.
Now and again he had a taste… It was very good. ‘It’s a pity about one thing,’ Sniff remarked. ‘We haven’t any music – Snufkin isn’t here.’
‘We’ll use the wireless,’ said Moominpappa. ‘You’ll see – everything will be all right – and we’ll drink the second toast in Snufkin’s honour.’
‘Whose is the first then?’ asked Sniff, hopefully.
‘Thingumy’s and Bob’s of course,’ said Moominpappa.
The preparations were getting more and more frenzied. The entire population of the valley, the woods, the hills and the shore were coming with food and drink, which they spread out on the tables in the garden: there were big piles of gleaming fruit and huge plates of sandwiches on the bigger tables, and on tiny little tables under the bushes there were ears of corn and berries threaded on straws and clusters of nuts nestling in their own leaves. Moominmamma put the fat for frying the pancakes in the bathtub because there weren’t enough basins, and then she carried up eleven enormous jars of raspberry juice from the cellar. (The twelfth had been cracked, I’m sorry to say when the Hemulen let off his squib – but it didn’t matter as Thingumy and Bob had licked most of it up.)
When it was dark enough to light the lanterns the Hemulen beat the gong as a signal for the party to begin.
Thingumy and Bob were sitting at the top of the biggest table. ‘Faney!’ they said, ‘so much buss and fother all in our honour! Can’t understand it.’
At first it was very solemn as everyone was dressed in his best, and felt a bit strange and uncomfortable. They greeted each other and bowed saying: ‘What a good thing it didn’t rain and fancy the bag being found,’ and nobody dared to sit down.
Then Moominpappa made a little opening speech in which he began by explaining why the party was being held, and then thanked Thingumy and Bob, after which he made some remarks about the short August nights and how everyone should be as happy as possible, and then he began to talk about what it was like in his youth. This was the signal for Moominmamma to push in a whole trolleyful of pancakes, and everybody clapped.
Things at once began to liven up, and soon the party was in full swing. The whole garden – in fact the whole valley – was full of small lighted tables sparkling with fireflies and glow-worms, and the lanterns in the trees swung to and fro like big shining fruit in the evening breeze.
The rockets leapt proudly up into the August sky, and exploded infinitely high up in a rain of white stars, which slowly sank down over the valley. All the little animals lifted their noses up to the starry rain and cheered – Oh, it was wonderful!
Then the Blue-star Rain began to fall and the Bengal Lights whirled over the tree tops. And down the garden path came Moominpappa rolling the big barrel of red punch in front of him. Everybody came running down with their glasses, and Moominpappa filled every one – cups and bowls, birch bark mugs, shells and even cornets made of leaves.
‘Good health to Thingumy and Bob!’ cried the whole of Moomin Valley. ‘Hip, Hip – Hurra! Hip, Hip – Hurra! Hip, Hip – Hurra!’
‘Dappy hays!’ said Thingumy to Bob, and they drank each other’s health.
Then Moomintroll got up on a chair and said: ‘Now I want to drink the health of Snufkin who is trekking South tonight all alone, but feeling I am sure as happy as we are here. Let us wish him a good pitch for his tent and a light heart!’
And on that everybody raised their glasses.
‘Yοu did speak well,’ said the Snork Maiden when Moomintroll sat down again.
‘Oh, well…’ he replied shyly ‘of course I’d thought it all out beforehand.’
Then Moominpappa carried the wireless out into the garden and tuned in to dance music from America, and in no time the Valley was filled with dancing, jumping, stamping, twisting, and turning. The trees were thronged with dancing spirits, and even stiff-legged little mice ventured on to the dance floor.
Moomintroll bowed low to the Snork Maiden and said: ‘May I have the pleasure?’ but as he looked up he caught sight of a shining light brimming over the tree tops.
It was the August moon.
It sailed up, a deep orange colour, unbelievably big and a little frayed round the edges like a tinned apricot, filling Moomin Valley with mysterious lights and shadows.
‘Look! Tonight you can even see the craters on the moon,’ said the Snork Maiden.
‘They must be awfully desolate,’ said Moomintroll. ‘Poor Hobgoblin up there hunting!’
‘If we had a good telescope couldn’t we see him?’ asked the Snork Maiden. Moomintroll agreed but reminded her of their dance, and the party continued with more high spirits than ever.
‘Are you tired?’ asked Bob.
‘No,’ said Thingumy. ‘I’m just thinking. Everyone has been so nice to us. We must try to roo something in deturn.’ And they whispered together for a while, nodded and whispered again. Then they went off to their secret hiding place and when they came out they were carrying the suitcase between them.
*
It was well after twelve o’clock when the whole valley was suddenly filled with a pinky-red light. Everybody stopped dancing as they thought it was a new firework, but it was only the opening of Thingumy and Bob’s suitcase. The King’s Ruby lay shining in the grass looking more beautiful than ever, making the fire, the lanterns and even the moon look pale and wan in comparison. Awestruck and speechless they all crowded round the glowing jewel.
‘To think that anything could be so beautiful!’ exclaimed Moominmamma.
Sniff heaved a deep sigh and said: ‘Lucky Thingumy and Bob!’
But meanwhile the King’s Ruby was shining like a red eye in the dark earth, and up in the moon the Hobgoblin caught sight of it. He had given up searching and sat tired and sad on the edge of a crater resting himself, while his black panther slept a little way off. He recognized the red point down on the earth at once – it was the biggest ruby in the world, the King’s Ruby, which he had been hunting for for several hundred years! He started up and, with gleaming eyes, pulled on his gloves and fastened his cloak round his shoulders. He dropped all his other jewels to the ground – the Hobgoblin only troubled himself about one single precious stone, and that was the one he would hold in his hands in less than half an hour.
The panther threw himself into the air with his master on his back, and they began to hurtle through space – faster than light. Hissing meteors cut across their path and Stardust caught in the Hobgoblin’s cloak like driving snow, and it seemed to him that the red fire below burned more brightly. He steered right towards the Valley of the Moomins, and with a last spring the panther landed smoothly and silently on the top of Lonely Mountain.
The inhabitants of the Valley were still sitting in silent awe in front of the King’s Ruby. In its flame they seemed to see all the wonderful things they had ever done, and they longed to remember and to do them once more. Moomintroll remembered his midnight rambles with Snufkin, and the Snork Maiden thought of her proud conquest of the Wooden Queen. And Moominmamma imagined herself once more lying on the warm sand in the sunshine, looking up at the sky between the swaying heads of the sea-pinks.
Each one was far away, lost in wonderful memories, when they were all startled by a little white mouse with red eyes who slunk out of the wood and scurried towards the King’s Ruby, followed by a coal-black cat which stretched itself out in the grass.
As far as anyone knew a white
mouse had never lived in Moomin Valley, nor a black cat either.
‘Puss! Puss!’ said the Hemulen. But the cat only shut its eyes and didn’t bother to answer.
Then the Wood-rat said: ‘Good evening, cousin!’ but all she got from the white mouse was a long, melancholy stare. So Moominpappa came forward with two cups wanting to offer the newcomers a drink from the barrel, but they took no notice of him.
A certain gloom crept over the valley. People whispered and wondered. Thingumy and Bob got anxious and put the ruby back in their suitcase and shut the lid. But when they tried to take it away the white mouse stood up on his hind legs and began to grow. He grew almost as big as Moominhouse. He grew into the red-eyed Hobgoblin in white gloves, and when he had grown enough he sat down on the grass and looked at Thingumy and Bob.
‘Go away you mugly old ‘an!’ said Thingumy.
‘Where did you find the King’s Ruby?’ asked the Hobgoblin.
‘Bind your own musiness!’ said Bob.
They had never seen Thingumy and Bob being so brave.
‘I have hunted for it for three hundred years,’ said the Hobgoblin. ‘I’m not interested in anything else.’
‘Nor are we,’ said Thingumy.
‘You can’t take it away from them,’ said Moomintroll. ‘They got it quite honestly from the Groke.’ (But he didn’t mention how they had exchanged it for the Hobgoblin’s own old hat – anyway he seemed to have anew one.)
‘Give me something to munch,’ said the Hobgoblin. ‘This is getting on my nerves.’
Moominmamma at once bustled forward with pancakes and jam, and gave him a big plateful.
While the Hobgoblin was eating they edged a little nearer. Somebody who eats pancakes and jam can’t be so awfully dangerous. You can talk to him.
‘Does it taste good?’ asked Thingumy.
‘Yes, thanks,’ said the Hobgoblin. ‘I haven’t had a pancake for the last eighty-five years.’
At once everybody felt sorry for him, and came still nearer.
